How Skills Work
When you use a skill, make a skill check to see how you do. Based on the circumstances, your result must match or beat a particular number to use the skill successfully. The harder the task, the higher the number you need to roll. (See Checks) Interaction Certain skills, called interaction skills (mostly the Persuasion skill), are aimed at dealing with others through social interaction. Interaction skills allow you to influence the attitudes of others and get them to cooperate with you in one way or another. Since interaction skills are intended for dealing with others socially, they have certain requirements. First, you must be able to interact with the subjects of the skill. The subjects must be aware of you and able to understand you. If you don't speak the same language, or they can't hear you for some reason, that's the same as working without the proper tools, 2 penalties on your skill check. Interaction skills work best on intelligent subjects, ones with an Intelligence score of -5 or better. You can use them on creatures with Int -5, but with 3 penalties; they're just too dumb to get the subtleties of your point. You can’t use interaction skills at all on subjects lacking one or more mental ability scores. (Try convincing a rock to be your friend, or to be afraid of you.) The Immunity FX can also render some characters immune to interaction skills. You can use interaction skills on groups of subjects at once, but only to achieve the same result for all. So you can attempt to use deceive or cow a crowd, for example, but you can't try to convince some individuals of one thing and the rest of another, or to intimidate some people and not others. The GM decides if a particular use of an interaction skill is effective against a group, and may apply modifiers depending on the situation. The general rules for interaction still apply: everyone in the group must be able to hear and understand you, for example, or you suffer 2 penalties on your skill check against them. Mindless subjects are unaffected. Knowledge Many skills include the ability to make Knowledge checks to remember or know important pieces of information related to that skill. Some skills (like Academics) are applied to a broad swathe of potential knowledges, while others (such as Athletics) might only apply to memorizing a smaller number of things. Use your base ranks in the applicable skill for the check, but instead of using the normal ability score to modify the check, use your Intelligence score. For example, a check to remember who won the 1980 World Series might use Athletics, but instead of using your Strength score to modify the check, use your Intelligence modifier. The DC is 10 for easy questions, 15 for basic questions, and 20 to 30 for difficult questions. The GM may make a the roll for you, so you don’t know whether or not your information is accurate. Manipulation Some skill uses require a degree of fine physical manipulation. You need prehensile limbs and a Strength score or some suitable substitute (such as a Precise Move Object FX) to use manipulation skills effectively. Characters lacking the ability to use manipulation skills can still have ranks in them and use them to oversee the work of others (with bonuses from Team Checks). Characters can grant themselves bonuses on Manipulation skills with a successful Finesse check. Tools Required Some Manipulation skills require specialized tools, such as lockpicks to open a door with Infiltration or an adequate lab to mix chemicals with Science. Attempting such a check without the proper tools imposes 2 penalties on the check. Resistances Generally, when subject to an attack or hazard, your relevant Resistance is what protects you from falling victim to it. The types of Resistances are Defense (to dodge out of the way of attacks and explosions), Fortitude (to resist internal bodily harm, like poisons and diseases), Might (to resist being overpowered physically), Perception (to notice threats or feints), Reflex (to react quickly enough to a sudden effect), Toughness (to avoid external wounds and attacks), Will (to avoid being overpowered mentally by psychic or magical effects) and Wits (to keep your thoughts ordered and logical). For more on Resistances in general and how they are overcome, see the Skill Descriptions in this chapter or the Combat Module. Untrained Skill Checks Generally, if you attempt a task requiring a skill you don’t have, you make a skill check as normal. Your skill modifier doesn’t have a skill rank added in because you don’t have any ranks in the skill. You do get other modifiers, though, such as the ability modifier for the skill’s key ability. Non-Proficient Skill Checks Alternatively, you might run across a situation where you lack a skill which your background and other abilities seem to suggest you should have some proficiency with. For example, in a fantasy game, a hard-bitten, well-traveled woodsman might have 10 ranks in Survival, only to realize that he doesn't have any ranks in Athletics to climb a tree! By all rights, a woodsman who has spent his whole adult life in the forest should have some idea how to scramble up a tree at night. In this case, with the GM's permission, he can make a non-proficient Survival check to climb a tree. In order to make a non-proficient check, you may use your ranks in the relevant substitute skill for the purpose of the check with 2 penalties. So the woodsman described above can use 10 ranks from Survival (the substitute skill) to make a non-proficient check to climb. Instead of using the substitute skill's normal ability modifier (Awareness for Survival), use the non-proficient skill's ability (Strength for Athletics). He'll also suffer a -5 modifier from the 2 penalties to the check. Team Checks Sometimes an entire team performs a task as a unit and individual success is irrelevant. In this case, the GM may call for a team check for the task. A team check works just like a normal check, except only one character makes the check for the entire team, with the other characters on the team able to contribute and help. The situation at hand determines the character who makes the check, as follows: * If only one character must succeed for the entire team to gain the benefits (e.g., one character can make a Persuasion check and inform others of what he finds), the character with the highest relevant modifier makes the check. * If every member of the team must succeed to gain the benefits of the check (e.g., every member of the team must succeed on an Infiltration check to slip past a sentry), the character with the lowest relevant modifier makes the check. In either case, if two or more characters qualify to make the check, the team can jointly choose which of them makes it. If a character goes solo, then the character is no longer a part of the team for purposes of the team check (good reason for the stealthy character to scout ahead, for example, making Infiltration checks independent of the rest of the team). Every other character on the team is entitled to make a DC 10 check with the appropriate skill for the check to grant their ally 1 bonus. If the character helping succeeds by 5 (with a 15 or higher), then the character making the team check gains 2 bonuses instead of 1. If the character helping succeeds by 10 or more (with a 20 or higher), the character making the team check gains 3 bonuses instead of 1. However, the team check will suffer penalties if characters rolling to help do poorly. Any character who fails this DC 10 check imposes 1 penalty on the team check. The character making the team skill check may spend Hero Dice on it normally. Category:Rulebook Category:Characters Category:Skills